BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Coalition troops formally handed over control of Iraq's Babil province to the Iraqi government on Thursday.

Medics treat wounded Ahmed Abdala who was injured in the suicide bombing on Thursday in Baghdad.

Babil, in central Iraq, is the 12th of Iraq's 18 provinces to revert to local security control. It is home to the ancient city of Babylon.

U.S. forces nicknamed northern Babil and surrounding areas the 'Triangle of Death' due to the amount of combat the area experienced earlier in the Iraq war.

Two days before the handover, 15 people were killed in the province in a land dispute between two tribes outside Hilla, according to the Interior Ministry.

Still, the move Thursday came amid a big drop in violence across Iraq and calls from Iraqis for the United States to come up with a troop withdrawal timetable.

A joint statement from the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, and the commander of U.S. forces in the country, Gen. Raymond Odierno, hailed Thursday's handover as "a positive step on the path to Iraq's self-reliance."

"The achievement in Babil Province means that now fully two-thirds of Iraq's provinces have assumed security responsibility," the statement said. "Iraqi Security Forces in Babil have been operating independently for the past several months. Working with local government and military officials, they have demonstrated their readiness to assume responsibility for the provincial security of Babil. Today this responsibility is theirs."

The other provinces that have transitioned to Iraqi security control are Duhuk, Irbil and Sulaimaniya in the Kurdish region, and Karbala, Najaf, Qadisiya, Muthanna, Thiqar, Basra, and Maysan in the Shiite south. Baghdad, Diyala, Salaheddin, Nineveh, Kirkuk and Wasit remain under U.S. control. View a map of the provinces »